


burdens

by irabelas



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Baby Fic, Changes of Tenses, F/M, Fluff, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Jealousy, POV Multiple, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 18:11:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3218552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irabelas/pseuds/irabelas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>”Do not lay down a trap and call it love, Alistair. She knows her duty. As should you.”</p><p>They were happy - yet happiness is not always enough to warrant that it should, or could, last forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	burdens

**Author's Note:**

> a take on tabris/alistair after the fifth blight has ended. alistair is king. mistress ending. refrences from both da:o and da:i is in here, so spoiler warning.
> 
> edited as of 28/01-15!

The King’s mistress was a fine thing, they said both in and out of court. Everyone knew - but there’s a difference between knowing and having it rubbed in your face. There’s a difference to sitting in the far rung tables to the left and by the King’s side. And certainly, there was a difference in the glances Alistair stole from her across the great hall.  
  
Vera pulled him into a storage room when Eamon went ahead after the long evening, pushing him onto the spare bed in a spare room. Maker knows this palace had a lot of them. When he smiled and said he’d needed a nap, she said that this - she motioned slightly with her hips - wasn’t for sleeping. As if he _hadn’t_ gotten that from the tugging at his breeches and the hot lips on his neck.  
  
Once they were done he’d simper down the hallway, clothes and hair tousled, to find Eamon or one of his other advisors and give them some lame excuse that never really fooled them. Whatever - they never did try to stop them, did they?  
  
There had been months and miles between them - and a great hall with ballgowns and ladies and lords simpering at him. Yet, what could he do when the Hero of Ferelden came home after months away on Warden business and tugged at his front like one does with a dog’s leash? Say no?  
  
Alistair rubbed the back of his neck - that was a bad metaphor, no matter how he looked at it. He was no more of a dog than she was naked harlot, dancing under moonlight as the tales said her kind did to ensnare unsuspecting men.    
  
Still, as she beckoned him over yet again that night, he followed. Complicity. Calmly. A smile on his face and a swagger in his walk because she was _home_ and maker’s breath he _missed_ that woman.

* * *

  
It had been years since the Blight ended.  
  
The rumble of darkspawn was still present, however, like the low growling of a stomach after wine coupled with too much cheese. Or, the morning after cheese coupled with too much wine.  
  
She was home now - for good, he hoped, as he watched her doing more paperwork than his kingly life had ever allowed him to. Warden business, she grumbled when his hands worked away at her shoulders, asking out of friendliness and because he loved her and maybe, maybe something else.  
  
”You know I’m a Warden too, right? Or did that slip your head when the crown touched mine?”  
  
”Crown-touched. Sounds better than tainted, doesn’t it?”  
  
”Well, I’m that too.” Alistair shrugged, listening to her sighs and watching her unravel below his fingers like some sort of intricate puzzle. ”If I can, I will help. You know that right? Just say the word and I’ll come marching with all of Ferelden at my back, alright?”  
  
”You’ve done that once already.” Vera laughed, letting the quill rest in it’s rightful place in the inkpot.  
  
”As I recall, we rallied them together.”  
  
”And who did all the talking?” She cocked her head, vivacious lips and heavy lashes staring up at him.  
  
”Maker’s tears, I’m making up for lost opportunity.” Alistair groan, a familiar sense of dread that he recognised as anxiety growing in his chest. ”Do you know how many public speeches I’ve had to make in this last month?”  
  
She squeezed his hand, comforting, warm and strong. ”Don’t worry yourself.”

* * *

  
No matter what, Alistair took pride in being born and bred a bastard. Despite the life of luxury and the vile looks he’d gotten from nobles both present and past it had its benefits (if those benefits outweighed the negative aspects however, he wasn’t _entirely_ sure).  
  
One such benefit, for that matter, was being able to sneak out of the palace and into a tavern without a single guard noticing. Two, was being able to blend in among his subjects like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Except not as ominous.  
  
It allowed him to hear them freely - even if no one spoke of him and he stayed by the bartender, drinking bad ale and sour wine and too light brandy (possibly watered down - no, wait, _definitely_ watered down) listening to their weary sighs of taxes and manhandling guards. For where does not the common people go if not to the drink to shake off the troubles of the day?  
  
If he was lucky, he’d hear a thing or two about himself. Maybe he’d even look into their complaints. File a report. Change things.  
  
Or, well, unluckily so, today.  
  
”That Tabris though? The elf?” A man’s jape rang through the tavern and would’ve reach Alistair’s ears whether he had liked it or not. ”Know what they call her? The Queen under table - right where her kind belongs!”  
  
Laughter enveloped the entirety of the tavern.  
  
Alistair rose so fast he felt lightheaded for a split-second. A rage, hot and white that made his teeth grind and muscles burn, the will to hurt, to whisper _Queen under the table, was it? You’ll be dead under the table if that ever leaves your lips again_ while he broke the man’s jaw increasing rapidly.  
  
Still, something stopped Alistair when his hand reached for the swords hilt. He imagined knit brows furrowed in worry and a plea on her lips, of _calm down dear, brawl once it’s something to brawl over, let’s go home_. So kind and thoughtful, graceful and-   
  
She would not have wanted this.  
  
The coins he tossed the inn-keep rolled onto the floor.  
  
They did not speak of it. He did not even mention it. It was more through love, as opposed to passion, that he kissed her that night, pulled her clothes off to her hear sigh his name, and stayed awake longer than usual, promising not to snore as he trailed his fingers along her bare arms.  
  
”You’re not the Queen under the table,” Alistair murmured into the ginger curls once he felt her breathing even out and deepen. ”You’ll never be called that again.”

* * *

  
”She left without saying goodbye,” Alistair said, almost kicking his desk in frustration, ”Not a kiss, not a hug, not a- _Maker’s breath_ , she even took the dog with her!”  
  
”She left a note, Alistair,” Eamon said, ever the voice of stupid, horrendous, much well-needed reason. ”Though, she did not leave you completely unknowing did she? I have not heard that much screaming since Teagan’s wife went into labour in the middle of court.”  
  
Oh, there had been a discussion alright. He only hoped that Eamon had heard them shouting not exactly what they’d been shouting. The thought of it made Alistair grimaced. ”You’re not making this any easier.”  
  
Warranted, the discussion they’d been having last night had been mostly one-sided: him telling her why she couldn’t leave, that he would follow her to wherever and beyond and her heaving back reason’s of duty and sacrifice - though in the form of spitting and angry glares. She had been upset that he didn’t understand; _out of everyone, you should_ , she had said, tears threatening to fall from her eyes.  
  
And still, he was angry. He’d gone to bed angry - muttering and murmuring, not even a goodnight kiss - frustrated and telling her that they should sleep on it.  
  
In hindsight, that had been his worst idea since he thought he could outsmart Morrigan.  
  
Eamon sighed for a moment, lifting his gaze from the documents, seeing as Alistair, the king of Ferelden, seemed more intent on sulking and staring at his navel than discussing farming taxes.  
  
”You leaving was never an option, Alistair.”  
  
Alistair rolled his eyes so hard he thought they might fall out from the rotation. ”Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t I the one who made you regent while I was off killing darkspawn?”  
  
”That was for weeks. She may be gone for years.”  
  
”That’s exactly why I should be with her!” Alistair burst out, hands balled into fists. ”I’m the King here! And a senior Warden! I could’ve gone with her or- told her to stay- commanded her to stay! She-”  
  
”Above all else, she is a Warden. Both of you have precious little time left. It is not through selfishness she has left you behind, Alistair. It is for you and for Ferelden.” Eamon said, his eyes dark behind bushy, grey brows. His voice raised above the low timber he usually held, eyes even and challenging when they met Alistair’s. ”Do not lay down a trap and call it love, Alistair. She knows her duty. As should you.”

* * *

  
Alistair had never liked rainy days, but this one bore more than just soggy socks and foul smelling dogs.  
  
A letter.  
  
Or, well, a note.  
  
_....I am certain there’s more to it than what he has revealed so far - the magister may be old and weary but he’s not completely daft. Yet. Alas, my hopes of getting information from simply feeding him porridge and keeping him company has failed - he needs me to investigate some ancient ruins for him. How ominous doesn’t that sound?_  
  
_I will see to it that we can be together, my love. We will grow old together, Alistair. I promise you that much._  
  
_Yours truly,_  
  
_Vera Tabris_  
  
The note was a hasty written one, he saw that much. The ink was in two different colours, the s’s merely scratches and almost unreadable, a splotch of ink where she’d hold off for too long. That it was written on a spare piece of parchment with other writings - in some language he did not know - on the backside was, however, the most prominent feature.  
  
Alistair almost snickered. Always on the run, he thought.  
  
Still, his heart soared at the words and he actually had to sit down, a hand running over his face.  
  
It was the first he’d heard from her in four months. It had been sent through the up-starter Inquisitor he kept hearing so much about. The one he had met in Redcliffe. Right. The one who took the mages off his hands. Right.  
  
The one he was set to marry. _Right_.  
  
A heavy hand settled on his shoulder. ”She lives.”  
  
”Told you.”  
  
Eamon sighed, long and heavy.

* * *

  
She came home to a house smelling of fire and roast pork, of daisies and a moon high in the night and sleepy guards.  
  
The pork was still there, in the great hall, half-eaten and a bone thrown down on the floor for the guard dogs. They didn’t bark as she passed, and she only half-stopped to pull another leg of the poor boar and throw it to Dog who contently stayed behind, breaking it until the marrow came through.  
  
She hurried up the stairs and a scullery maid dropped a basket as she passed, a horrified gaps leaving her. She did not look back as she rounded the corner, even if the girl was unfamiliar.  
  
Right, left, down the hall, left by the hearth, straightforward - _aaand_ stop.  
  
She stood by the door - heavy and wooden as it was, but uncreaking and as silent as a chantry mouse. Just as quick as she had been there, she was inside quietly.  
  
Her prey had it’s back toward her, hunched over something - one hand steady in the handle of a jug, the other one shaky on fragile yellowed parchment.  
  
Her hands settled on his shoulders, rubbing the ache of two lonely years away.  
  
”I’m home.”  
  
Alistair sprung up and embraced her. He smelled like wine, dog drool, pinecones and _hers_ , simply hers.  
  
”Maker’s breath woman, I thought you were dead-” His hands cradled her face, thumbs tracing her cheekbones, pushing stray locks of hair behind her pointed ears and kissing her nose, her cheeks, pressing his forehead to hers and sighing breathlessly.  
  
Tears were brimming in his eyes, and in hers too.  
  
”I missed you too.” Vera didn’t try to fight off the smile that tugged at the corner of her lips.  
  
”I-” She was back in his embrace again, his voice a bare murmur against her, ”Don’t ever leave again. Please.”  
  
Her fingers touched his. Palm to palm, fingers to fingers, curling together where they stood, bodies pressed so tightly together but not nearly enough and whispered: ”I won’t ever have to again.”

* * *

  
Tea is poured for them and the elven servant leaves.  
  
”He will never love me.” The new Queen says, smiling as if they were exchanging pleasantries.  
  
”He holds great admiration for you-”  
  
”Admiration,” The Queen - young, beautiful, _human_ \- interrupts her, ”is not love. He holds reverence for me, I know, but he does not consider me his companion, or his friend.”  
  
The tea is sweet and addled with milk and honey - almost too much. It is, however, not as sickly sweet as the words that leave the Queen’s mouth. ”No, that position is reserved for you. It always has been, it always will be.”  
  
The room is floral and bright, and Vera doesn’t doubt for a second that it’s more marvellous than the gardens at the moment. _No nooks, no crannies - good_. Vera squirms in her seat, uncomfortable as to where her own train of thought were going. ”I cannot change that, your worship.”  
  
”You are in no harm of me, my lady. Had I wanted you out of the way you would be so.” Her royal highness waves a hand - a graceful hand, a dainty hand, not one full of callouses and scars - and with it she waves off the suspicious Vera allowed herself to hold, ”Not that that would make Alistair love me. He lacks tact, not brains.”  
  
She waits a moment before replying, the conversation eerily alike one she once had with a witch of the wilds. She responds similarly. ”He may be a idiot, but he’s my idiot.”  
  
Yet again, the Queen smiles that pleasant smile, letting a girlish laugh escape her. ”Finally something we can agree on.”

* * *

  
Queen Trevelyan is kinder than she expects.  
  
She too, has someone by the side. A templar, a templar of _common blood_ , and Vera laughs long and hard until there’s tears in her eyes when Alistair tells her, and he cocks his head with a _what’s so funny_ barely out of his mouth and she gasps _they’re reversed!! reversed us!!_ and he joins in her laughter.  
  
Evelyn - as is the Queen’s name, she finds out after two moons had passed - and Alistair doesn’t sleep together. Ever, Vera believes, and she tells herself that it doesn’t matter at all, either way. A heir would never come of their marriage.  
  
It is her bed he comes to every night; right after the coronation he had been hers, the day after the wedding she was his, right after every triumph and every downfall they’re together. Even as they sit in silence, taint pulled out of them little by little by the old Tevinter magister she had found in the western deserts their fingers intertwine, a promise to not let go.  
  
After one such session renders them bedridden for a week she complains that their bed - a sturdy thing, framed by snarling dog heads (yet still amiable looking; leave it to a Fereldan woodcarver to make it so) and silken sheets - is too soft.  
  
Alistair demands that it be changed and the servants listen until there’s a somewhat stand in-ish bed waiting for them one evening. You’re too kind, she says, and he jokes that he’d scout the land to find a bed that suits her. He can do that too, he points out, if she wants to.  
  
He lavishes her in gifts during these struggling months of fevers and vomit mixed with blood and something _else_ that’s dark and tainted. ”For all those times you gave me gifts and I had nothing in return.” He tells her when the seventh dress of that month lays on their shared bed. ”And I’d love to see you in that,” He adds, almost sounding too thoughtful for being... well, Alistair. ”Or out of it, if you prefer. Hold on - _yes_ , I think I prefer you out of it.”  
  
She suspects its more because he feels guilty for getting engaged while she was away than it is for how her form is hugged by dresses.  
  
She does not probe.  
  
It’s after they’ve made love and there’s still sweat covering their skin in a thin veil (Vera doesn’t enjoy the smell of sex, but tells herself that she does and that she should relish in it, after all those months of fumbling hands and tumbles on hard, solid ground that she had to endure during the Fifth Blight, during those lonely years of her own cold hands and only her memories) of afterglow that she turns to him, listening as his breathing is already turning heavy, addled with sleep.  
  
”We really need a new bed, Alistair.” Her feet dangle off the edge and very pointedly so the bed gives away a loud creak, as if agreeing with her sentiment by saying _throw me into the pit, I’d be better off firewood than with you two on top of me every night_.  
  
He laughs at her - at the bed. Until he feels her stiffen, that is. Then he pets her on the ginger curls of her head and tells her he’ll do what he can.  
  
”You’re the King,” She says, ”You can do whatever you like.”  
  
”I could find you the best bed in all of Ferelden but there would be consequences to that. Some might go without a bed, all because of your bed-stealing ways.”  
  
”You make me sound like some kind of bed-harlot.”  
  
”Are you not? Or did I mistake that part where you wanted a new bed?”  
  
”All because of you, then. This mattress is too flattened from all the times you’ve pushed me down on it.”  
  
Alistair gives a huff of false indignation. ”Excuse _youuu_? Who was on top this time?”  
  
Vera cocks her head, eyes glinting. ”And this time too.” She straddles him again.

* * *

  
”A heir,” Vera breaths, and the words curl from her mouth in puffs that dwindle through the harsh winter cold, ”A heir.”  
  
”N-now?!” He’s still holding balls of snow in either of his hands, aimed at her. Yet now, they’re falling to the ground, pointedly as his jaw does. ”How?”  
  
Her lips purse more than she’d like to admit. ”Did Wynne not explain this to you? You do know where babies come from?”  
  
”Of course I do! I-” He grimaces at her. ”This is a little sudden, don’t you think? It’s only been-”  
  
”We’ve been having sessions for over six months now, dear.” Vera says, calmly, having rehearsed the line a dozen times in her head. ”That, plus my bowlegged walk of our _other_ sessions has alas born fruit. Literally.”  
  
He holds her in his arms then, all but forgetting the snowballs he was so ready to throw at her moments before. Alistair presses a kiss to her temple whispering promises for the child he’s trying too hard to phantom; _will they have curls? will they inherit my handsome nose? will they be ginger? oh Maker, don’t let them be ginger._  
  
She slaps his arm at the last one, but still smiles too brightly to try and be serious.  
  
In the midst of it, he insists they go inside. It’s cold, he says, too cold for a baby to be outside. She rolls her eyes. Lovingly.  
  
Alistair was never tactful - he was all over the place, quite literally. He slams open the doors - orders food to be brought to their rooms and _blankets! more blankets!_ rings through the stone halls like the chant does in the Chantry - and takes her to their shared bedroom with a, finally, comfortable bed.  
  
He pulls up an armchair, letting her rest on the bed, his elbows on his widespread knees as he stares at her. There’s a seriousness in them that she finds commendable - and a glazed over look from the candles by the window.  
  
Silence rings through their little home - warmed by the large hearth to the left, the bear rug beneath her feet and the heraldry of Ferelden hanging on the walls - and it’s uncomfortable for once. Cotton tongue and bumbling hands pest her.  
  
Still, she is quiet. He is not the man she once knew. Six months does not make up for two years of lost time and there’s nothing she’d rather do than go back and change that, but Maker she _can’t_ and-  
  
”I never thought I’d be a father.”  
  
She inhales so sharply his gaze locks with her instead of the rounding of her belly.  
  
”After the first two years of us together, I thought it wasn’t possible anymore.”  
  
”I admit, the Tevinter magister seemed like more of a surprise than sex resulting in babies.”  
  
”Here I thought Wynne told me the whole truth.”  
  
” _Alistair_.”  
  
Alistair laughs, long and loudly until the scowl and worrylines of her face fade away. He trails off, chin resting on clasped hands as a heavy, poignant silence fills them.  
  
”I don’t want a bastard.” He says, voice low and his eyes cast in shadow, ”I don’t want another one like me.”  
  
Her hands curl over the almost unnoticeable bump, protectiveness of a child she had not wished for, had not known until a day before filling her, overflowing like wine does at the late night parties of Orlais and she tells herself _that is that then, I’ll leave_. ”Alistair-”  
  
”I don’t wish that on anyone. Least a child. Least of all my- our, child.” His voice breaks and there’s uncertainty there, of memories long past. ”Maker’s breath, I’m terrified, Vera. Even growing up as I did, as an orphan, was hard. But growing up as a bastard of the king of Ferelden? Who’s also the bastard son of the former king? Oh, it’s just ironic.”  
  
Vera rose from her seat and without a word, linked their hands together.  
  
”Then change that.”

* * *

  
”He’s taking this a bit too seriously, isn’t he?” Eamon’s voice reached her ears.  
  
Alistair roared from the courtyard below, holding up a shield and a wooden sword as Sam lunged at him, ginger curls flying in the wind.  
  
”Do you know he stayed up all night designing the heraldry for the shields?” Vera says, watching the paint chip away from the rounded shields, and listening to Sam’s triumph laughter ringing through the air as Alistair falls to his knees in false dramatic action.  
  
” _What_ \- is this why he fell asleep during court this morning?” Eamon huffs, and it’s of frustration and indignation and maybe a tiny bit of amusement. Finally, he sighs, long and deep. ”My Queen, please keep a leash on your husband. You’re the only he listens to.”  
  
Vera laughs, a hand landing on the rounding of her belly. ”We all have our burdens.”


End file.
